


Payment for Services Rendered

by Kirsten



Category: Smallville, U-571
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Crossover Pairing, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-30
Updated: 2005-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-13 15:26:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/138816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirsten/pseuds/Kirsten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hitched a ride off-base and Tyler fetched up in Plymouth, down and dirty in some dive by the docks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Payment for Services Rendered

**Author's Note:**

> For the virginlex community.

Hitched a ride off-base and Tyler fetched up in Plymouth, down and dirty in some dive by the docks. Dark little hellhole half-bombed and crumbling, plaster falling from the walls, dust clouds clogging up the air, the sweat of a century's men cooked into the walls with the heat from the fire. It stank and it soared, and Tyler breathed deep and long because it all smelled better than a Nazi submarine and the emptiness of wide open sea.

The landlord took one look at him and brought out a bottle of brandy. It wasn't Tyler's usual but the place didn't look to have no beer left in the tank by the time Tyler leaned up against the bar, later than midnight and way past the hour. Tyler dropped the cash on the counter in a pool of some other guy's spilled liquor and didn't bother with the snifter set down in front of him, just popped the cap and took a shot straight from the bottle, let it burn in his mouth for a second before he swallowed. It washed away the scent of burning rotting flesh and the taste of brine and grinding metal, but only for a second. Then the scents and tastes came back, the worst kind of aftershock, the worst kind of kick.

The sound of the sirens, close by and loud. Tyler looked around but didn't move. The landlord kept wiping the counter.

"Go down to the cellar," the landlord said.

Go down or get out. Tyler considered it, picked up the bottle and headed for the door. "Thanks for the drink."

"Hope they bomb your Yankee arse," said the landlord, and Tyler grinned and waved and walked out, looked up at the Luftwaffe and the RAF slinging bullets at each other, the way sparks of light and shot creased up the night sky, made it seem smaller, folded it like paper. War made the whole world smaller, and Tyler took another drag on the brandy, swallowed, raised the bottle and toasted Jerry and Tommy, fighting it out way up above the ground.

Where to go, where to go. Smoke and ash clogged his nostrils and blackened his face. Tyler opted for the alleyway at the side of the bar, tripped down on feet still steady, took another drink to try and fix the steadiness into something careless, a stagger worthy of a broken man. It didn't work, and Tyler didn't think it ever would. The world knew better than to let a man only play at being broken when death camps filled every corner of Europe.

The alley ended with a brick wall. Tyler shrugged and leaned against it, slid down to the ground, settled in to drink his brandy surrounded by rats and trash. It was a lonely place, dank and filthy, and Tyler didn't expect to hear footsteps approach his position, didn't expect to hear voices, low and rough, talking about sex and money and silence. Didn't expect to hear the deal go sour, the sound of fists hitting a body, faint protests and the shattering of glass. Christ, Tyler thought, that was some whore getting beat up down there, and he put the bottle carefully to one side and rose to his feet, walked softly, stalked softly, and came up on his prey with a smile.

The guy was big, bigger than Tyler and definitely bigger than the girl on the ground clutching her face, her shirt torn and dirty, her skirt up around her waist. Tyler grabbed the guy by the shoulder and twisted him around, launched a solid kick to the guy's fat gut, a punch to the guy's fat mouth. The guy howled, tried to come back from it, and Tyler kneed him in the groin, and the guy collapsed, crying and cupping his crotch.

Tyler stepped back and looked at the girl. She looked tired through the steam of Tyler's breath in the cold air, but she stopped crying long enough to push herself up from the ground, grab a brick and smash it into the guy's face, snarling, "You prick," in a voice that wasn't too feminine at all.

The guy stopped crying at that, stopped moving and twitching. His hands fell away from his cock and rested on the ground. He kept breathing, but it didn't stop Tyler frowning at the maybe-girl. "He was already down."

The maybe-girl glared at him, pulled down her skirt. It was hard to ignore the anger in the gesture. Tyler shrugged, decided to let it go. "You need some help?"

"I need a drink," said the maybe-girl, and her voice was back to feminine, feminine American.

Tyler nodded. "Wait here," he said, and went back to fetch his brandy. Found a rat licking at the rim, kicked it off, wiped the bottle on his uniform. Maybe-girl'd never know, decided Tyler, and Tyler, well, he just couldn't give a rat's ass.

She was waiting. She shook a little, and the beads around her neck jangled quietly. Tyler shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, handed her the brandy and watched her put it to her lips, watched her tilt back her head, and suck, and swallow, and swallow.

She finished and gave it up, pulled his jacket tighter around her shoulders. "I'm not really a girl."

"I kind of figured," Tyler said, and drank again.

She fingered her hair, smoothed curls that kissed her shoulders. "This isn't even real," she said.

"No shit," said Tyler. "Want another drink?"

She smiled and took the bottle. Tyler liked her smile, girl or no girl, and would've loaned his arm if it weren't so fraught a gesture, so many different possibilities encompassed by the offering of flesh.

Turned out, it was an empty worry. "I've got a place," she said, cutting through the crap. "Come back for tea?"

-

So that was how Tyler ended up in a boy-girl's bed and liking it, liking it a lot, lying back against soft red pillows with his-her head resting against his shoulder. Not the kind of thing Uncle Sam should ever hear about, and he made sure to swear her to secrecy.

"I won't breathe a word," she said, and grinned a grin that was all amusement. "I've got my own secrets. But tell me. Is it sailing or submarining that hooked you in the service?"

"It ain't the former," said Tyler, and that made her laugh, and intelligence lightened her eyes. "You're smart," said Tyler. "How come…?"

And that sobered her up. "How come I'm whoring?" Tyler nodded the clarification, and her smile went brittle and dark. "I'm a boy who likes to dress in his dead mother's old clothes," she said. "What kind of life do you think my father'll let me lead?"

Tyler looked into her eyes and saw nothing but death, figurative, sure, but it was still like looking into another kid's floating dead dead eyes. No kohl on Trigger but darkness just the same, and Tyler thought the echoes would kill him worse than the choice itself, if only because the choice hadn't killed him as much as it should.

"Dad found me like this once," she said. "In the back room of some club. I don't remember which. I wasn't doing anything, just dancing with a guy. Since then…. A regular job isn't an option. I've been blacklisted from Boston to Bombay." She leaned back, smoked on her cigarette. "Even the army doesn't want me, and they're crying out for suckers."

"Your dad can do that?"

"Dad's rich," was all she said, and that was okay. Tyler didn't need more to get a handle on it.

He drank his tea, listened to the bombs. Thought about home, the S-33, Dahlgren, Eddie, the Chief. Where the hell was he? Debrief over and a twenty-four hour liberty pass sent the survivors off into the night, alone, sick of the sight and sound and smell of each other. Tyler couldn't be the only guy drinking the raid away.

She kissed him. It was wet and clumsy, and Tyler had to ask. "You ever done this before?"

She flushed and tried to pull away, but Tyler wouldn't let her. "How could you tell?" she asked, and Tyler put his fingers on her lips.

"You kiss like a virgin. And I've seen whores," he said. "All over the world, a whore's got a look in her eyes. Like maybe she's been hit, or hurt. You've been hurt. But not like that."

She tilted her face up to the ceiling. Tyler gave her the time to think, kept his fingers on her lips. They were soft and silky, pink lipstick faded away to pale, and it left faint shimmers on his fingertips. She opened her mouth a little and kissed his fingers, her eyes far away as she thought.

Eventually she shrugged. "How hard can it be? Turning tricks is a new habit, and I don't intend to do it long. I've got scores to settle back in the States, but that doesn't mean I can't have fun along the way." She rolled over him, straddled him, rested her hands on his chest and leaned down to breathe on his lips. "So how about it, mister-submariner?" She turned coy, playful, over the top and pushy. "You gonna give me some sugar to go with that tea?"

Tyler put the mug aside and reached up, touched her hair, ran his fingers through it and cupped her head. Brought her down for another kiss, took it slow, licking at her lips, her teeth, her tongue. She moaned into his mouth and fumbled his shirt open, pushed the material aside and touched his chest, scraped his nipples with her fingernails. "I want to suck your cock," she whispered, and Tyler smiled to think of it as she unfastened his pants and slid to the floor beside the bed, down onto her knees. "Stand up," she said, touched her hands to his thighs and caressed him slowly.

Tyler liked to obey a reasonable order, so he stood and dropped his pants. "You really want to do it like this?"

"Whore in training," she answered, and took off her wig. She was bald. He was bald, and she was a he, masculinity unmistakable without the blanket of hair. "Does it bother you?" she asked, and all Tyler could think about was putting his hands on that naked head and holding it between his thighs and shoving his cock down her throat, over and over again.

So Tyler did.

She moaned at the rough treatment and sucked him down good. "You'll be a good whore," Tyler said, "with a little more practice."

She pinched the back of his thighs, and the sharp stinging bite of pain made him come. He thrust against her face until he finished, and then he held her there so he could soften in her mouth. Her fingers stroked his hips and she hummed a little and seemed content on her knees with her jaw stretched open wide.

When he did let her pull away, she had come on her lips. Tyler swiped it off with his fingers, put his fingers in her mouth and made her lick them clean.

She fastened his pants for him, stood and lay back on the bed, her makeup stark without the hair to frame it. "Time for you to go, mister-submariner."

Tyler paused in fastening his shirt. "You don't want –"

"Oh," she said, "I think we both know you're not the kind of guy who knows how to handle a dick. Especially when it's wrapped up in silk." She smiled at him. "Don't worry. I'm not pissed."

Tyler glanced at her crotch. "Can't get it up?"

"You're rude." She scowled. "Now I'm pissed."

Tyler shrugged, tugged on his jacket, breathed in the scent of her perfume still clinging to the fabric. "For what it's worth," he said, "I think you have a beautiful smile."

Her scowl faded and drifted back into a smile. "I don't need to get turned on," she said, and there was sadness in her voice. "Not for the things I'm going to do."

Tyler leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, turned before he could see her face, but he still paused in the doorway and looked back. "What's your name?"

"No names." She waved a hand, the gesture dismissive and languid and brave, her head naked and bare in the lamplight. "Names would spoil it," she said. "Don't you think?"

Tyler considered that. "No."

She laughed. "Get lost," she said, and Tyler left and closed the door.


End file.
